Man presumed dead survives week on Mount Everest without food or oxygen

Dawa Sherpa, who was missing for several days on Mount Everest, is recovering well, according to his family. (Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar)

A Sherpa guide has survived nearly a week on Mount Everest without food or oxygen.

Dawa Sherpa was last seen on May 29 after he failed to return to base camp with his Polish client.

The guide's family said they had given up hope of finding him alive and were on the second day of a funeral ritual.

A Mount Everest Sherpa guide, presumed dead after failing to return to base camp, was found crawling down the slopes of the world's highest mountain after surviving about a week without food or oxygen.

Dawa Sherpa went missing on May 29 when he was returning with a Polish climber after failing to reach the 8,849 metre summit.

His client returned to Base Camp, but it was unclear how they had been separated.

"Dawa survived alone for nearly a week without food, water, or supplemental oxygen, navigating the treacherous Khumbu Icefall [even after the fixed ladders were removed for the season]," the Nepal Mount Everest hiking company said in a social media post.

Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water.

Paramedics transport Dawa Sherpa from the helipad at HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu. (Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar)

A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who had already begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.

Dawa’s family said they had given up hope of finding him alive and were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

The guide's daughter, Mhendo Lhamo Sherpa, said her father was doing well and undergoing treatment for frostbite and other complications.

“When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” she said.

Dawa and his client were among the last climbers on Everest this season, which ended last month.

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

Nepal's mountaineering community has hailed Dawa's survival as miraculous.

“This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days in the mountains facing such harsh conditions,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a leading f